Is your idea of a great Valentine's date spent touring a wastewater treatment plant? Well, urine luck.
For the turd year running, the Newtown Wastewater Treatment Facility opened up to the public for a tour on Valentine's weekend. The RSVP for the four, roughly 90-minute tours filled up in less than two hours, flushing away the dreams of many hopeful attendees.
Mother Nature decided to make water on the day of the tour, but it takes more than crappy weather to dissuade the faithful from making the Saturday tour.
The tour starts with a introduction to the NYC wastewater system as a whole, then drains into the specifics of the Newtown Creek facility. After a brief PowerPoint presentation on the history of the facility, the tour begins at the beautifully designed digesters on site.
Our guide, Ali, gave us the runs down of what the digestors do—transforming raw material into clean water again. One point that prairie-dogged a bit was the $7 million to clean out baby wipes, a figure I'm sure caused a stink to city figures. Basically flushable wipes are just that: flushable. They don't disintegrate like standard toilet paper and tend to collect in the digestors.
After digesting all of that info, everyone was pumped for the second half of the experience. As the tours have grown in size, we were cut into two groups so we could all trickle in efficiently.
Ali was gracious enough to take the time and explain each part of the digestors and how things flow throughout. He was quick to warn us not to touch anything, no one likes a party pooper.
More info on the tours is available at NYC.gov and I highly recommend going and signing up as soon as you can.
If you're interested in giving what comes from where the sun doesn't shine its time in the sun, your time will not be wasted.
No word on my recommendation on a gift shop called "Doody Free" or renaming the tour to "Poo-La-La" or "Shit Show."